My niece and I visited the Panera Bread in Vancouver, Wa on March 9th. We both ordered a "Pick Two" meal, she ordered a sandwich with tomato soup and I ordered the beet salad with mac/cheese. I did not receive the beet salad, instead it was the cashew salad without the chicken. Two hours after leaving Panera Bread, my stomach starting acting up and symptoms progressed for the worse. That evening I threw up and had diarrhea. It is now two days later and I'm starting to feel better but wanted people to know so they wouldn't get sick. Never had food poisoning before and don't wish this on my worst enemy. I called the store and informed the manager and she said it would be tracked, never asked if I wanted a follow-up. So I called their main number on their website and spoke with another manager, and he said he was sorry and informed me they would document it and do I want a follow-up, I said, yes and he never asked for my number and just kind of said, thanks and we hung up. So that's why I'm writing on this board, so others know and don't get sick.

I'm quite enamored and sadly, relieved, to read most of these responses. Granted, some do come off as petty/trivial. "Oh, you had to WORK?!? My god! The audacity that they'd expect you to exert yourself!"

I say that, as in my 2 years, I worked damn hard, while dealing with a very debilitating and rare medical condition. (Cluster Headaches...research it. It's rare, as in less than 1% of the world pop is effected by it. It also has another name, being suicide headaches, as a small portion of sufferers have opted to take that means to spare themselves the misery)

A headache (bah...think migraine x's 10) kicked in, and I worked through it. So yeah...not much sympathy there is my point.

Anywho... I can fully attest that these stores, and what I perceive, the company in general, is completely mismanaged. Probably more rare to find a good store than a bad one, as far as working at is concerned.

I'm not gonna bash Ron Shaich...I think he's actually genuine in his dealings and approach. But he's one man sitting in an executive office. Aside from picking menu items and decor...what handling do you think he actually has wth the day to day operations?

Nope, it's the lesser management that's playing the part of poison here. (Again, surely not ALL...but a great deal of them, undoubtedly)

As I stated earlier, I worked for them for 2 years. Started at a store before the doors even opened...so as such, to me and the dedicated members among me...this was our baby.

We got fed the Kool-aid, and digested it eagerly. Provide exceptional service, no shortcuts, the whole happy horsesh!t diatribe. Hook, line, and sinker.

Truth be told, each and every one of us walked in with head's high and brimming proud smiles.

But as the days progressed, the veneer began to fade, and we saw it for what it was.

For my part, I was hired for cash, but in the weeks training we had before the store openned, I went from Cash, to Panninis, to Sandwiches, and on the day we opened Salads. It was a sh!t show! For the next 5 months that followed, I was the only member of staff cross-trained. Basically, I never knew what I was gonna be doing when I walked in. Some shifts, I was bounced between 3 different areas. Cash, dish, barista, line...never able to prepare or expect what the day would have me doing. (A year + later it was made known to me if you had 3 or more areas under your belt, you were owed a .35 boost in pay...certainly didn't get it!)

During this, I was told, practically on a daily basis, "don't worry, buddy. Your hours are set!" This changed immediate when a new scheduling manager took over, and due to personal issues with me (she slept around with another employee, who inturn wound up going shift and later AM...and in talking with other employees I'd voiced my concerns) my hours went from 36-40, down to 20. As a result, I wound up living out of a tent and my car for a stretch. But I still made it to every scheduled shift, bathed and smiling.

This was enough to get me in good standings with the roaming head day-baker, who offered me a position on their end. To which I jumped at the chance.

I thought, "finally...I'll be free of the bull!"

I thought wrong.

In the first week of my overnight training, the manager of our region not only lied to me about health insurance, but offered me a mere quarter more...to which I called him out on, knowing the day-baker currently at our store (not the one who got me in) was making $2.75 more than that.

Basically, he just wanted me to go overnight...hence the low-balling.

I was agreeable to that. (Some might say loyal and dedicated...others, a sucker. Make the call as you see fit)

I was at least, until I went 5 weeks without seeing my first check, and being handed the excuse, "if it's not there today it will be tomorrow"...for about 3 weeks.

My phone got shut off, my landlord was up my ass, and I couldn't even afford a .99 bottle of shaving cream to groom my face.

I'd reached my wit's end, and I quit.

2 months later, in visiting a friend/co-worker, the same chick who screwed me on hours before was now basically BEGGING me to come back. In my absence, the inmates were running the asylum, so to speak, and management had little to no control.

So I opted to take up the offer.

Let's just say, two weeks later, head-day baker came in, and I was soon back to training. (And the guy who was in charge lost half his territory as a result of me quitting...ahh, karma!)

Couple months go by, I take to the day-baking position well enough that I could do a shift with my eyes closed when the bottom basically dropped out. Our DM comes in, minutes later our GM abruptly leaves, and an hour or so after that, my soon to be nemesis for the remainder of my career make his grand entrance.

This man was our DM's friend. Hired simply for that fact only. I got to watch these two albatrosses attempt to open our back door unsuccessfully for 5 minutes before I stopped what I was doing, walked over, and with one hand, turned off the alarm, opened the door, shook my head in disgust, and went back to it. Irony is, this was on my birthday. Helluva present...lemmie tell ya!

The man couldn't manage opening a door...and we'd all soon find out, he was just as equipped at managing a store.

Within the first week, he was swearing at cashiers, chewing them out infront of customers. He did none of his paperwork, and to this day, handles food with gloveless hands. If you called him on it, he either ignored you, or shrugged it off.

As far as company standards and procedures went...they didn't apply to him.

He threatened one employee he was going to fire him. As the most liked person on staff, he came to me about it. (Mind you, this kid had a touch of mental retardation...but quite capable of performing his duties. Went to college to boot, so he wasn't a dummy by any stretch. And he knew his job and to the letter.) "He threatened to fire me." he said. So I responded, "When did this happen." and the smug bastard, without missing a beat walks by and says, "About 30 mins ago!" to which I shot back, "Well that's a helluva way to motivate someone..."

Later in the day I go out for a smoke while waiting for my last bake to finish, and he followed me.

"Look...if you tell someone six, seven, eight, nine...if you tell someone enough times, wouldn't you threaten to fire them?" dead eyed.

"Actually, I'd a stopped the third time and took a different approach. I dunno...maybe SHOW him what you expect?"

He had no response. To which he basically came to me before leaving for the day and asked me to handle it...not my job or area, but, I liked to make things work, so I took up the task.

From that point on, I was a marked man. And for the next 6-8 months, this man waited for any opening to get rid of me. Which I refused to give him.

Over that time, I had to deal with our night baker lumping her duties on me (frosting her cookies, day-dotting her product she couldn't be bothered to, baking vast amounts of breads...which, as a day baker, I'm strictly delegated to pastries only) and no one getting on her (ie; managing) for it.

I watched this man continue to handle food without gloves, pastries and sandwiches alike...once, mixing lobster and mayo gloveless. He sold a customer an egg that was sitting in a steel pan in our dish sink, as breakfast ended 15 minutes prior, and regularly told managers not to throw out cookies and to package them for sale the next day (baked fresh daily? Not so much) and instead of throwing expired sandwich ingredients out, he ordered the line guys to switch the dates...EVERY NIGHT!

The man was a disgrace. And I made it clear I felt as such. (Freedom of speech...think I'm entitled to an opini

A couple of month's ago my teen-age son was hired by Panera Bread. He was very excited and told me often how much he enjoyed the job. I read their handbook and they claimed they were a good place to work because of the respect they showed for their employees. Soon enough we found out that they have no respect for their employees.

Female employees were referred to as 'the bitches' by one of the managers. Then, things got worse. My son was working in the sandwich line in front of customers. It was a hot day, and he asked the female worker next to him what was wrong with the manager. She told him (my son) that she didn't know what was wrong with him(the manager). She then told my son that the manager was probably upset because she had told the manager that he should suck my son's dick! This female employee thought that making that statement to the manager was funny. My son left the store stunned and later called one of the other managers to explain why he had left work.

Now, logically, you would think that the female employee would get in trouble for making such a remark at work and that the manager she said it to would have done something about the trash mouth female employee. No way! This same manager was the one that referred to the female employees as 'bitches' and he did nothing about it. My son registered a complaint with management and Panera started their 'trash the victim' nonsense.

My son was immediately suspended from work (that's what happens when you file a complaint at Panera's) and he was told there would be an investigation. The manager who was supposed to run the investigation then took three sick days off. To make a long sickening, story short they ended up firing my son after a week and a half of asking for written and signed reports from him.

Instead of cleaning up their house, they decided to pick on a teen-age boy. Wow! I think they deserve a place in the corporate Hall of Shame. I have told all of my friends, relatives and acquaintances the story (there are many) and I personally will trash them every chance I get.

I've worked at panera for almost two years I am a trainer. This is the thong my store is in Indiana we are the busiest in our district. I've only seen our district manager six tines in this period which is ridiculous since he's the one telling us what we as a store are doing wrong. We get raises once a year and its split into a raise pool. This last year our raise pool was a little under four dollars. This os then split between 20us to 30I employees, I have to laugh at this because our particular store does anywhere between 40k20us to 70k a month. Yet we get a percentage that's so small of that to split. Panera would be a wonderful company of we werent over worked and under paid its a complete joke. I just wished corporate would take time to recognize who really makes the company work its not then sitting in their cozy little offices or the regional manager that never comes in or the district manager that runs all over the state ir even our general manager that they over load with all this paperwork that they can't get out of the office but the small persons called associates. We deserve better treatment and better pay because with out us u wouldn't have a store what would you do if we went on strike they would lose over a million dollars in one day and that still wouldn't hurt them as a company. I would love this company if I were guaranteed a promotion of some sort every year